Travel and Food

COVID-19 separates couple, threatens Polish restaurant

Marcia Vineberg was almost packed and ready to rejoin her husband.It’s complicated. They had moved from Vancouver to this Tampa Bay community on Florida’s gulf coast 10 years ago to care for her mother, who had fallen. Harriet Rand, 95, died in December. And Gerald Vineberg a Canadian native who spent half of each year as a businessman traveling in Europe and Asia, wound up opening The Nosh Kosher Cafe in Tarnow, Poland, three years ago. Then COVID-19 arrived. [Bruce F. Lowitt]

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Bruce F. Lowitt, International, Travel and Food, USA

A book reviewer’s search for Jewish stories

The author, born in 1990, earned her Mathematics degree from Middlebury College and completed an MFA in fiction at Columbia University in 2018. The novel is set in crisis plagued New York around 9/11 2001. The author drops almost poetic hints; “Lower Manhattan opened its gates to the general public again…a light northward breeze perfumed the air with drywall dust and soot…we looked south and saw the great gap tooth against the gullet of the sky.” We were at war, from where would the next terror come? [Oliver Pollak, PhD)

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Books, Poetry & Short Stories, Oliver Pollak, Travel and Food

Those dang fish must be prejudiced!

It has been a constant sense of amazement to both my Christian wives, how quickly I can pack a suitcase when we leave on a trip. The spouses would begin packing a week or more before we set out. I never pack until the last few minutes before going out the door. There is a simple explanation, consider the history of my Jewish ancestors, and you can see why. For the last two thousand years, we have always been ready to leave town at a moment’s notice. With that in mind, it is easy to understand when I exclaim: “A Jew can spot anti-Semitism earlier and from more subtle sources than any other person.” We can pick them out in a sold Super Bowl football game, or smell one in a tropical jungle. I personally discovered a previously unknown, festering group, during a four-month road trip my wife Carole and I took around the U.S.A. when we first retired. [Ira Spector]

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Sports & Competitions, Travel and Food, Trivia, Humor & Satire

Face to face with the Cambodian genocide

Lieng, our fortyish Cambodian woman guide, told us prisoners were brought to these rooms for four months of torture before they were killed. They were defiled day and night without rest. The jailers extracted the names and locations of all their relatives and friends from them. Those people were also arrested and brought to the prison. The first people to be killed once wore glasses. The Khmer Army leaders were ignorant peasants and reasoned that anyone who wore glasses was an intellectual and hence were the enemy. People threw away their glasses and stumbled around when they became aware of this irrational thinking. A similar fate followed for any professional person, doctor, teacher, businessman, bureaucrat, etcetera. The legacy of this stupidity is, that Cambodia desperately needs to rebuild its intellectual capital to fully function as an independent nation. Today it is totally dependent on the aid of other nations to support basic services and repair war damaged structures. [Ira Spector]

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International, Travel and Food

Morocco a model for U.S. multiculturalism

As the United States embraces improving race-relations, Black culture and heritage become more than just an expression of the Black community, but something that is inherently all-American. As the movement brings light to nationwide change, it may be helpful to consider the methods of Moroccan multiculturalism, where cultural protection is tied to development, limiting socioeconomic divides and welcoming diversity. [Jacqueline Skalski-Fouts]

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International, Jewish History, Lifestyles, Middle East, Science, Medicine, & Education, Travel and Food, USA

Temple Isaiah families dance in socially distant circles

Large circles, at least six feet apart, were drawn on the upper parking lot of Temple Isaiah, each reserved for a family grouping who wanted to dance, play games, and congregate, yet maintain the proper social distance from other families during this time of Covid19. (Donald H. Harrison)

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Donald H. Harrison, Judaism, Lifestyles, Music, Dance, and Visual Arts, Travel and Food, USA

Humor: How to achieve Middle East peace

For many years I have preached an obvious solution to the Israel desire for peace and an end to many decades of war with the Arab nations. It’s really quite simple… A secret delegation of high level representatives from the Israeli government, some engineers, agronomists and a few of the best chefs travel to the Australian Outback in a timely manner just before Passover. [Ira Spector]

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International, Middle East, Travel and Food, Trivia, Humor & Satire

S.D. Zoo enables world travel for those staying home

With Covid-19 causing many people to cancel their travel plans, especially visits to countries that have imposed a quarantine, some people tune in to YouTube or the Travel Channel to get their “travel fix,” albeit virtually.  We decided we could do better while remaining home in California. We went to the San Diego Zoo. [Shor M. Masori and Kenede Pratt-McCloud]

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Middle East, San Diego County, Sandi Masori, The World We Share, Travel and Food

The man behind the ‘chrain in Spain’ and elsewhere

Marc Gold hoped he could combine his love of writing and sports into a career; and after college graduation, he worked for newspapers and had a  fantasy of owning one. But, like his father, uncles, cousins and a brother, he took a different career path, joining the world-famous condiment company Gold Pure Food Products and was involved in all aspects of the business, including production, quality control, accounts receivable and payable Eventually he was the chief of all sales, shipping and public relations/publicity for decades.  [Joel H. Cohen]

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Jewish History, Joel H. Cohen, Travel and Food